Cristian Roldan's 90th-Minute Winner Lifts Seattle Sounders Past Sporting Kansas City 2-1

Sporting Kansas City spent the closing minutes camped around Seattle's box, hunting a winner of their own. Then the ball turned over, the Sounders broke, and Cristian Roldan ended the argument in the 90th minute with a right-footed strike from outside the box into the bottom left corner.

Roldan's late goal gave Seattle Sounders FC a 2-1 win over Sporting Kansas City on Thursday night at Lumen Field, completing a comeback after André Luiz had put the visitors ahead just before halftime. Seattle have now won three straight and are unbeaten in eight, per the club. Sporting, who outshot their hosts, flew home with nothing.

Sporting Bring the Fight

Sporting arrived fresh off a 2-0 win at Houston and played like it. Calvin Harris tested Andrew Thomas from distance in the fifth minute, and the Seattle goalkeeper was busy all half. He stopped Harris again in the 22nd, kept out a close-range Wyatt Meyer header a minute later, saved a Taylor Calheira header in the 28th and denied Harris and Stephen Afrifa in the 40th and 42nd.

Seattle had their moments too. Stefan Cleveland saved from Peter Kingston in the 10th minute and from Albert Rusnák and Jordan Morris later in the half. But in the 44th minute, Sporting finally broke through. Afrifa stepped in to win the ball and fed André Luiz, who finished with his left foot into the top left corner from the middle of the box.

Afrifa was honest about how it happened. "I step onto the ball like I did today. I got lucky off of it, and Andre took the chance and converted it."

Gomez Changes the Game

Seattle head coach Brian Schmetzer sent Sebastian Gomez on for Danny Musovski at halftime, and it paid off in six minutes. In the 51st minute, Morris set up Gomez for a right-footed finish into the bottom right corner. Seattle said it was the first MLS goal of his career, after he scored earlier this year in Leagues Cup play.

Wicky saw the shift coming from the other bench. "They put their fastest player up front and not on the wing, they played a little bit more direct, and we suffered," he said. Sporting had controlled long stretches of the first half, but the second half was a different, more frantic game.

The Sounders pushed for a second. Cleveland saved from Kingston in the 56th minute and from Morris in the 60th, and Roldan headed over from a corner in the 70th. Sporting kept swinging, too. Thomas made another save on a Calheira header in the 77th, and Jansen Miller and Calheira both headed over late. Lasse Berg Johnsen went off in the 79th minute with what Sporting head coach Raphael Wicky later called a hamstring problem, and Kingston left injured in the 89th for Mark Bronnik, a Tacoma Defiance forward on a short-term agreement who, per Seattle, has a team-high 13 goals for Defiance this year.

The Turning Point

Wicky did not want a point. "We did not, even at the end of the game, sit and just go for a point," he said, according to Sporting. That ambition cost them. By Wicky's account, Sporting's counterpress after losing the ball in the 90th minute came up just short, Seattle escaped, and Roldan finished the break from outside the area.

"We were very unlucky to lose here in the 90th minute," Wicky said. Thomas still had to make one more save in stoppage time, on a Jacob Bartlett shot from distance.

Captain, Keeper and Super-Sub

Cristian Roldan scored the winner, and Seattle also credited the captain with a secondary assist on Gomez's goal. The club said it was his fifth goal of the season, all in MLS play, and that he ranks sixth in club history with 48 goals and second with 82 assists in all competitions.

Andrew Thomas made nine saves on 11 Sporting shots on target. Without him, this is a very different recap.

Sebastian Gomez scored with his only shot on target off the bench, and Jordan Morris set it up, his fifth assist of the season, per Seattle.

For Sporting, Calvin Harris put all four of his shots on target, and André Luiz led the team with five attempts. Afrifa summed up the mood. "I felt like we deserved a lot more from this game."

Stats That Matter

• Shots: Sporting outshot Seattle 22-21.
• Shots on target: Sporting 11, Seattle seven.
• Saves: Thomas made nine. Cleveland made five.
• Possession: Seattle held 58.6 percent of the ball.
• Corners: Seattle won 11 to Sporting's six.

What It Means

Seattle improve to 10-8-9 (wins, draws, losses) with 38 points, with three straight wins on top of five straight draws before that. The club said the Sounders sat seventh in the Western Conference at the time of writing and are unbeaten in their last five meetings with Sporting, with four wins and a draw. Seattle head out for road games at New England on Saturday and at Dallas the following Wednesday.

Sporting Kansas City fall to 6-3-18 with 21 points. The teams drew 1-1 in Kansas City in May, and Seattle said this was the 33rd regular-season meeting between the clubs, with the Sounders now leading the series 16-12-5. In front of 28,587 at Lumen Field, Sporting were a minute away from at least adding a draw to that ledger. Wicky pointed to the bigger picture: "I think our last four or five performances are going in the right direction." Afrifa is not ready to wave the white flag either. "We're trying to push for our goal of the playoffs. We know there's still a chance, so we're going to fight till the end."

The Closing Take

Sporting did the cardio and Seattle got the highlight. It was like an opening act playing the whole set with real energy, only for the headliner to walk out at the very end and close with the hit everyone came for. Roldan, the captain, picked his moment perfectly, and the Sounders keep stacking points at exactly the right time of year.

Stats from ESPN's match data. Postgame quotes as reported by Sporting Kansas City. Additional details from Seattle Sounders FC.